707 Restaurant & Bar

Comfort food at comfort prices is a great concept, and there's potential here, but they need to cut the cute.

September 09, 2007|By Craig LaBan, Inquirer Restaurant Critic
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Likewise, a special gazpacho was so haphazardly cooked, it was like eating a bowl of soupy salsa - though I appreciated the generous fistful of crabmeat mounded in the center. The honeyed chicken wings were another good dish that faltered on hasty technique; the plump wing meat had a chewy, undercooked spring that would have benefited from more gentle cooking. The big pork chop was impressively thick, but a little dry, despite its tasty pineapple salsa.

Desserts attempt the same updated comfort shtick, with equally mixed results. The chocolate layer cake is decent, but the thin icing lacks intensity. The toasted pound cake is too dry to come without sauce. This kitchen even muffed a seemingly unbotchable banana split, gracing our scoops of ice cream with little more than a dried-out brown banana, a few crushed nuts, and one lonely squeeze-bottle streak of chocolate.

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But then arrived a funnel cake so marvelously fresh, its crisp lacery of deep-fried batter as big as a snowshoe, that I had to smile. Such a spark of whimsy is more than just a cutesy culinary wink when it's done so well. It gets devoured down to the last hot, crispy crumb.


Next week, Craig LaBan reviews Blackbird Dining Establishment in Collingswood.

Contact restaurant critic Craig LaBan at 215-854-2682 or claban@phillynews.com.

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